AI-Powered Phishing - Would Your Employees Fall for It?

The worrying part? It’s never been easier for criminals to do their homework.

Your business is giving cybercriminals everything they need

Think about how much information your business shares publicly.

Your website showcases your latest projects. LinkedIn identifies your employees and their job titles. Facebook and YouTube highlight customers, events and company activities. Companies House identifies your directors.

It’s all useful marketing information. Unfortunately, it’s also a goldmine for cybercriminals.

Using AI, criminals can piece this information together and create highly personalised phishing emails that appear to come from someone your employees know.

Imagine this scenario.

Your business has just announced a new project on LinkedIn.

A member of your team receives an email apparently from that client, referring to the project by name and asking them to review an updated document.

The email looks professional. The names are correct. The project details are accurate.

They click the link, enter their Microsoft 365 credentials, and suddenly a criminal has access to their account.

No obvious spelling mistakes. No suspicious story. Just a convincing email at exactly the right moment.

And the information needed to create it could have come straight from your own marketing.

Your staff are your weakest link

You can spend thousands on firewalls, antivirus and other cybersecurity tools, but one convincing email can still cause enormous damage.

As we explored in our previous article, Your Biggest Cyber Risk Isn't Hackers – It's Humans , employees remain one of the biggest vulnerabilities in any business.

New starters are particularly exposed.

They don’t yet know all your customers, internal processes or what’s considered an unusual request. They’re also keen to make a good impression, making them attractive targets for criminals impersonating senior colleagues or clients.

And it only takes one mistake.

A compromised Microsoft 365 account, fraudulent payment or data breach can be expensive, disruptive and damaging to your reputation.

So here’s the question: how do you know whether your employees would spot a phishing email?

You test them.

Phishing simulations: find the weakness before a criminal does

Phishing simulations are exactly what they sound like.

You send your employees realistic but harmless phishing emails and see how they respond.

Do they click? Do they recognise the warning signs? Do they report the email?

At FOS.net , we partner with Boxphish to make this incredibly simple.

And here’s where it gets interesting.

Boxphish allows us to create customised phishing emails that look remarkably convincing.

For example, we could build a simulation that appears to come from one of your clients, referencing a genuine project your business is working on and asking an employee to review a document.

Or an email apparently from your Managing Director requesting an urgent action.

These are exactly the types of targeted attacks that criminals can create using information freely available online.

The difference? Our simulations are completely harmless. They expose vulnerabilities without putting your business at risk.

We can then identify which employees need additional awareness training and measure improvements over time.

It’s not about catching people out. It’s about making sure they don’t get caught out by a real criminal.

Four tests a year. That's all it takes to get started.

For most small businesses, we recommend running phishing simulations at least once every quarter.

That’s four opportunities a year to test awareness, reinforce good habits and identify potential weaknesses.

New employees should also receive awareness training as part of their induction.

And the best part?

It’s incredibly easy to set up.

With Boxphish, we can configure the platform, create realistic campaigns, schedule the simulations and provide clear reports showing the results.

There’s no major IT project, no complicated deployment and minimal disruption to your employees.

Just a straightforward, proactive way to reduce cyber risk.

For a small business, it's an absolute no-brainer

AI has made convincing phishing attacks easier to create, faster to personalise and much harder to recognise.

Your employees are being targeted, whether you realise it or not.

You can hope they’ll recognise a malicious email when it arrives.

Or you can find out how prepared they really are.

Phishing simulations are simple, practical and could prevent a very expensive mistake.

For a small business, it’s an absolute no-brainer.

How confident are you in your employees?

At FOS.net , we make phishing simulations and cybersecurity awareness training simple through our partnership with Boxphish.

We’ll help you get everything set up, run realistic campaigns and identify where your business could be vulnerable.

Don’t wait for a real phishing attack to discover your weakest link.

Get in touch with FOS.net to arrange your first phishing simulation.